Josiah Owns It!

I am so excited for Josiah. We were riding down the road yesterday, and he announces that he wants me to teach him how to read. He has been asking a lot of questions for the past several months, noticing words, spelling them out, guessing what they are, etc...on signs, in books, on restaurant menus, maps, instruction manuals, etc. He plays games with us like Sight Word Bingo, etc, and we just help him along. He recognizes and "reads" words he sees around the house...like our names, etc. But this is the first time he has asked for a sit-down, formal lesson. I was not feeling well when we pulled into the driveway. I have picked up a respiratory bug somewhere and I am fighting it off. But I managed to pull two phonics kits I have and some sight word cards. We got in the bed and did our Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (which we have done for awhile but not formally), plus our new stuff, until I gave out. He is so focused! He is so funny, telling me and Sam (who loves to blurt out the word first) to shut up, he wants to say the word. Even though Sight Words are like breathing to Sam by now, it is still a good review for him...he did miss about 2 of them. A few hours later Josiah asked to go at it again. Gosh it was close to 10pm and I was so looking forward to bed, but we did another round. I had to make him stop, because I felt so weak and achy. I am so thrilled and of course I am going to rise to the occasion, but somehow I imagined it going like this: "Mom, I want you to teach me how to read.", at which point, I would set aside a small amount of time each day and cover things in order, gradually, day by day. Oh no. He wants to go and go and go at it, so it is my job to help him go at it!

I am not even sure he could recite the alphabet all the way through if he was asked. He only recognizes some letters by name, others by sound, and those are the ones he has asked about because he wanted to know.

Josiah owns his learning!

"Learning to read is easy, and most children will do it more quickly and better and with more pleasure if they can do it themselves, untaught, untested, and helped only when and if they ask for help." ~John Holt, Learning All the Time